It started off as just a way to be creative, for(as most of you know) my husband is a tad of a picky eater. I grew tired of making the same old things for him. So when I stumbled across The Domestic Goddess website, I knew that could be my creative outlet.
I started with no camera and very little posts. I’ll admit I did very little with this blog this first year. It was an exciting day around here when a post got more than two comments. I remember the first time one of my post got 10 comments on it and I called my husband at work all excited. He didn’t seem to share my enthusiasm. Now I tend to get more than 10 comments. (Several people leave comments saying they doubt that I have time to read all the comments. Let me assure you, I read every last one of them.)
Then I got a camera and started taking incredibly bad photos with them. Now before you give the, “I’m sure they are not that bad” speech…head over here and see for yourself.
Then I was smart and started asking other food bloggers what type of camera they used and did they have any tips. As it turned out, the Cream Puff and I had almost the same Nikon camera and so she helped me find the macro setting…and the rest was history.
Once my hubby realized that I was in this for the long haul, he was a sweetheart and bought me a SLR. Then food photography became all sorts of fun. I never would have expected that photography of all things would be my favorite aspect of the blog. Don’t get me wrong, I love the baking and the eating portion too. I just was never really into photography much. I’m still not…unless it is food! Heck, I even started another food blog just so I could take more pictures of different food(other than baking).
This blog has allowed me to “meet” some truly wonderful people out there in the blog world. I figure if I could meet my husband over the Internet, I could certainly make friends over it. And I have.
It’s led to professional opportunities that I would have never anticipated. Who knew someone would want to pay me for my pictures or for me to write about food???

(This is one of several of my photos in Washington Travel and Life Magazine)

So here it is, three years after the fact. I am a better person for starting my blog. I thank all of you who have been there for the long haul and all of you who are just starting to become a reader. I’m hoping for at least another 3 years….
Cheers,
Peabody

As luck would have it, I got to spend a whole day at one of my favorite restaurants, The Herbfarm. I have mentioned it several times on this blog. For an article I am writing I got to do their 24 hour experience, which involves you spending the morning on the actual farm picking veggies and herbs. Then you get to eat what you picked later on that night at dinner. It was pretty much heaven to me. One of the herbs I fell in love with was Lemon Verbena. I have seen it before but never used it before. My friend E’s wife has it in her garden. So I went and took some(with permission of course ).
Like it’s name implies, it gives off a lemon flavor. I used it to flavor the milk I used in the cupcakes just to give a nice subtle hint of lemon. I like it because it adds just enough lemon flavor without it becoming too overpowering.
And since this is MY blog birthday and all, I decided my cupcakes needed cream cheese frosting, since as everyone knows, everything taste better with cream cheese frosting on it.

 Lemon Verbena Cupcakes

1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups superfine sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup milk
¼ cup roughly chopped lemon verbena(if can’t find use the zest of one large lemon)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place milk and lemon verbena in a small sauce pan. Bring milk to a boil and immediately take off of heat source. Place milk and lemon verbena into a bowl and place in fridge for one hour.
Remove milk from fridge and strain out the verbena.
Set milk aside.
In a small bowl, combine the flours. Set aside.
In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugar gradually and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla. With each addition, beat until the ingredients are incorporated but do not over beat. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the batter in the bowl to make sure the ingredients are well blended. Carefully spoon the batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about three-quarters full. Bake for 20¢â¬â€œ25 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center of the cupcake comes out clean.

Let cool for15 minutes. Remove from the pans and cool completely on a wire rack before frosting. Frost with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting(recipe follows).

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

2(8 ounce) packages cream cheese, at room temperature
zest of one lemon
6 ounces unsalted butter, at room temperature
approximately 5 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Cream together cream cheese, butter, vanilla and zest, about two minutes. Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time until you reach desired consistency.

Source:  Adapted from More from Magnolia by Allysa Torey

So we are going in a new direction with Tuesday’s With Dorie. We are no longer giving the recipe. Which I understand and support, but my site is about giving people recipes. So in order for me to continue to do that, I will not actually be doing Dorie recipes. Just recipes inspired by Dorie. That way, you still get a recipe and I have to try a little harder to come up with something.
This weeks recipe, La Palette¢â¬â„¢s Strawberry Tart, selected by Marie(A Year at Oak Cottage), is a simple tart that is spread with strawberry jam, then fresh strawberries and topped off with crème fraiche or whipped cream.
I decided to make it into cookie form. My cookie dough is blended with fresh mint, rolled out and cut so that they are like linzer cookies(having a hole in the middle). Strawberry jam goes between the two layers of cookies and fresh strawberries are place in the cut out. With just a tiny dab of whipped cream.
If you want to see what the actual tart was suppose to look like, head on over to the TWD website.

Minty Strawberry Coolers

Minty cookie dough
strawberry jam
strawberries

Minty Cookie Dough

12 oz unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
¾ cup granulated sugar
1 TBSP minced fresh mint
1 egg
2 ½ cups flour
¾  cup cornstarch
¼ cup water(if needed)

 
Cream the butter with the sugars until light and fluffy. Add the mint and mix until well incorporated. Add in the egg and mix well.
Mix together the flour and cornstarch. Add this to the creamed mixture and blend. Mix in the nuts thoroughly. If dough is too dry, add ¼ cup water, 1 TBSP at a time until soft dough is formed.
Form the dough into a ball and wrap in plastic. Chill for about 4 hours.
Roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut with a cookie cutter(I went with fluted cutters). Keep half the batch whole and the other half take a smaller cutter and cut out the middle of the cookie. You want to create a window effect. Bake at 350F for 10 minutes.

Take cookie that is whole. Spread jam on top of it. Place cookie with hole cut out on top of that. Fill with diced strawberries and top with whipped cream.

Sweetbreads sounds so much better than thymus glands. Escargot sounds better than snails. Rocky Mountain Oysters sounds better than testicles.
It’s all in the marketing really. I mean, I am quite sure that panna cotta would not be as popular as it is, if it were called Cream Jello. Which is what it is essentially. Sugar, cream, gelatin…panna cotta. Sounds like Cream Jello to me.
But we don’t call it that, and plenty of people eat it, including me. In my quest for finding Pacific Northwest foods for my other blog, I ran across a recipe for Buttermilk Panna Cotta. Needing to use up my soon to expire buttermilk I gave it a go. The original recipe does not use honey or dried cherries and throws in poppy seeds. They also use a fresh fruit compote as well. I’m sure it is nice but I didn’t have any spare fruit lying around.
Been super busy, will write about that later. This dessert was enjoyed with these lovely chilled mussels. Together they made and excellent Pacific Northwest lunch.

Buttermilk-Honey Panna Cotta with Dried Cherries

1 envelope(about 2 tsp) unflavored gelatin
2 TBSP warm water
1 cup heavy whipping cream
2 cups buttermilk
½ cup sugar
½  cup honey, divided
½ cup dried cherries

Sprinkle gelatin over the water in a large heatproof bowl. Let sit for 10 minutes.
Whisk in the cream, buttermilk, and sugar and set the bowl over a pan of simmering water. Whisk until smooth and the sugar is melted. Whisk in ¼ cup honey.
Evenly distribute dried cherries among 6 small custard dishes. Pour remaining ¼ cup of honey evenly among the 6 dishes. Pour the panna cotta mixture evenly into the 6 dishes. Wrap each one with plastic wrap(don’t let it touch the panna cotta). Refrigerated overnight, or a minimum of 12 hours.
One at a time, place each ramekin of panna cotta in a shallow bowl of very hot water-to ½ inch from the top-for a count of about 10 seconds. Remove, run a knife around the outside, then unmold the panna cotta onto individual dessert plates.  Serve immediately.

Adapted from Kathy Casey’s Northwest Table by Kathy Casey

We all have a dark side. Sometimes the devil on our shoulder somehow quells the angel over on the other. I’m sure duct tape is involved.
My parents were lucky…or so I tell them. I was a good kid. Good grades(except when I tried to fail geometry to get a boy I liked to tutor me ). No detention, ever. No trouble at school, ever. Pretty much a teacher pet(aka: brown nosing ass kisser). Grounded twice, one of which my mother over turned when she came home(my dad had grounded me). Spanked twice. See, good.
I had my moments though. Where I was not really punished but I got the “disappointed” talk. Which I was probably only one of the few kids this worked on…for nerdy me hated to disappoint my parental unit. One of those disappointing talks came when I was around 7(not sure totally on the age) and my aunt and uncle had come to visit. My cousins, C and C came with them. I have few cousins(my family apparently doesn’t like to breed…me included), but C and C were who I was closest to, for they were my age(give or take). As a treat they brought Ding Dongs with them. I’m pretty sure this is the first time I had ever had one. They were placed in the fridge and we were told that when we got up in the morning to watch cartoons we could eat one for breakfast(let us not judge my parents breakfasts…this was their ploy to sleep in ).
I was up first. I ate the chocolate coating from around the Ding Dong. It was good. Then I started to eat the cake part. That wasn’t so good. I picked at the cream in the middle a little and then threw it out. All I kept thinking was how great the chocolate coating was.
At this point is when I believe my shoulder devil ducted tape my shoulder angel down. For I got the great idea to unwrap another Ding Dong. Eat the coating only and then re-wrap it up as if nothing ever happen. That was so good I decided I would do it with the next one. Until I had gone through the whole box.
In case you didn’t guess, somehow I got caught. Apparently my re-wrapping skills are not that great at age 7. Or could it be the chocolate coating-less Ding Dongs.
I was a bad girl and chocolate was involved. Kind of like my contraband Opera Cake. Coincidence? I think not.

Contraband Coffee, Chocolate, Toffee Opera Cake

For almond sponge cake:

3 tablespoons cake flour (not self-rising), sifted after measuring, plus additional for dusting pan
2 whole large eggs at room temperature for 30 minutes
1 cup almond flour (3 1/2 oz) or 2/3 cup blanched whole almonds (see cooks’ note, below)
½  cup confectioners sugar, sifted after measuring
2 large egg whites at room temperature for 30 minutes
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, foam discarded, and butter cooled

Toffee Syrup:
½ cup Torani English Toffee Syrup

For coffee buttercream:
2 teaspoons instant-espresso powder
¼  cup plus 1 tablespoon water
6 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 large egg yolks
1 stick (½  cup) unsalted butter, cut into ½ -inch cubes and softened

For chocolate buttercream:
¼ cup water
6 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 large egg yolks
1 stick (½  cup) unsalted butter, cut into ½ -inch cubes and softened
2 ounces melted semisweet chocolate
2 tsp dark cocoa powder

For chocolate glaze
¾  stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter
7 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened; preferably 70 to 71% cacao), coarsely chopped

1 cup toffee pieces, chopped finely

Special equipment: a 15- by 10-inch shallow baking pan; an offset metal spatula; a candy thermometer; a small sealable plastic bag

Make sponge cake:
Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 425°F. Butter baking pan, then line bottom with a sheet of parchment or wax paper, leaving a 1-inch overhang on short sides, and generously butter paper. Dust pan with cake flour, knocking out excess.
Beat whole eggs in a large bowl with a handheld electric mixer at high speed until eggs have tripled in volume and form a ribbon when beaters are lifted, 2 to 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low, then add almond flour and confectioners sugar and mix until just combined. Resift cake flour over batter and gently fold in.
Beat egg whites in a bowl with cleaned beaters at medium speed until foamy. Add cream of tartar and salt and beat until whites just hold soft peaks. Add granulated sugar, then increase speed to high and beat until whites just hold stiff peaks.
Fold one third of whites into almond mixture to lighten, then fold in remaining whites gently but thoroughly. Fold in butter, then pour batter evenly into baking pan, spreading gently and evenly with offset spatula and being careful not to deflate (batter will be about 1/4 inch thick).
Bake until very pale golden, 8 to 10 minutes, then cool in pan on a rack 10 minutes.
Loosen edges of cake with spatula, then transfer cake (on paper) to a cutting board. Cut cake into strips and squares. Trim outside edges slightly, then carefully peel paper from strips and squares and set back on paper.
Make coffee buttercream:
Stir together espresso powder and 1 tablespoon water until powder is dissolved. Bring sugar and remaining 1/4 cup water to a boil in a very small heavy saucepan, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Boil, without stirring, washing down any sugar crystals on side of pan with a pastry brush dipped in cold water, until syrup registers 238°F on thermometer (soft-ball stage; see cooks’ note, below).
While syrup boils, beat yolks in a large bowl with cleaned beaters at medium speed 1 minute.
Add hot syrup to yolks in a slow stream (try to avoid beaters and side of bowl), beating, then add coffee mixture and beat until completely cool, 3 to 5 minutes. Beat in butter, 1 piece at a time, and beat until thickened and smooth.

Make chocolate buttercream:

Bring sugar and remaining 1/4 cup water to a boil in a very small heavy saucepan, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Boil, without stirring, washing down any sugar crystals on side of pan with a pastry brush dipped in cold water, until syrup registers 238°F on thermometer (soft-ball stage; see cooks’ note, below).
While syrup boils, beat yolks in a large bowl with cleaned beaters at medium speed 1 minute.
Add hot syrup to yolks in a slow stream (try to avoid beaters and side of bowl), beating, then add coffee mixture and beat until completely cool, 3 to 5 minutes. Beat in butter, 1 piece at a time, and beat until thickened and smooth.
Add chocolate and cocoa powder and mix until thoroughly incorporated.

Make glaze:
Melt butter and all but 2 tablespoons chopped chocolate in a double boiler or in a metal bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water, stirring occasionally, until smooth. Remove top of double boiler and stir in remaining 2 tablespoons chocolate until smooth, then cool glaze until room temperature but still liquid.

Assemble cake:
Put 1 cake square on a plate, then brush generously with one third of toffee syrup. Spread half of buttercream evenly over top with cleaned offset spatula, spreading to edges.(Since I used two different types of buttercream. I layered coffee, chocolate, then coffee. Since you will have leftovers of each kind of buttercream, you can decided which buttercream you want to use the most of).
Arrange both cake strips side by side on top of first layer (any seam will be hidden by next layer), then brush with half of remaining coffee syrup. 
Top with remaining cake square and brush with remaining coffee syrup. Spread remaining buttercream evenly over top, spreading just to edges. Chill cake until buttercream is firm, about 30 minutes.
Reheat remaining glaze over barely simmering water just until shiny and spreadable (but not warm to the touch), about 1 minute. Pour all but 1 tablespoon glaze over top layer of cake and spread evenly just to edges. Top with toffee pieces. Chill cake until glaze is set, about 30 minutes, then trim edges slightly with a sharp serrated knife.

Source: Adapted from Gourmet Magazine, September 2004